The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Obama's Invisible Hand

I’m not going to write any articles on AmSpec about Obama for at least a week given the amount of attention (well-deserved, of course) he’s getting. I’d suggest launching an Obama Fast, but the problem with doing that is that he’ll then say something like this:

“I’ve always said that [Somethingorotheristan/Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan] won’t be helped by [military aid/military intervention/continued military presence/money we send them/chocolates/toys]. This doesn’t [contradict/change/bankrupt] what I said earlier, because it [is a natural evolution/doesn’t exclude hefty caveats/perfectly complements the goals of some other foreign person]. The critics are all [playing politics/misrepresenting what I’ve said all along/being paid off by oil companies/confused by how brilliant I am].”

Anyway, all of this is to say that I want a large number of Obama supporters to click on this link (via Andrew Sullivan) and just tell me, in earnest, the same things they’ve been telling me about Obama for weeks. The Daily News writes:

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a “problem” that had barely reduced violence.

“The surge is not working,” Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama’s campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an “improved security situation” paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

A campaign spokesman says Obama is “not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events.”

This gets down to what I said in my article on the New York Times op-ed — that you might get away with flip-flopping in a speech, but flip-flopping in print is different. And while “Chicago politics” might have permitted such flaps, an entire nation is watching as he tries to employ the same tactics here.

topics:
Military, Iraq, Iran, Oil

About the Author

J.P. Freire is a writer in Washington and a former editor at the Washington Examiner and The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jpfreire.

http://spectator.org/blog/2008/07/16/obamas-invisible-hand

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